"...Asked whether the findings imply a fearmongering strategy for conservatives, New York University psychologist David Amodio responded, "Yes. And some people believe that they are actively using this strategy."

The Bush administration has been accused of exploiting fears, though it's hardly a new approach.

"The whole aim of practical politics," wrote journalist gadfly H.L. Mencken, "is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins."

Jost condemned such tactics. "From an ethical standpoint, conservative campaigns should not exploit feelings of fear in the general population," he said.

Of course, ethics tend to be forgotten during election seasons -- but fear-mongering may be counterproductive.

"From a practical standpoint, I think that there will eventually be a backlash against those tactics as it becomes more obvious how exploitative they are," said Jost."

Friday, September 19, 2008

Fascinating article about the history of the Bavarian Illuminati, not only is it a huge article, but full of notes, references and links. Red Ice Creations posted part 2 of this which I will link too in a few days after I've read it. Part one is a must read for anyone who dares to use the word Illuminati! I might post some more of the enormous amount of links out of this article separately later. Disclaimer: If the length of the article conjures up resistance, you might wanna let your attention span know you're the boss of it and not the other way around ;) Breathe hehe.

In the literature that concerns the Illuminati relentless speculation abounds. No other secret society in recent history - with the exception of Freemasonry - has generated as much legend, hysteria, and disinformation. I first became aware of the the Illuminati about 14 years ago. Shortly thereafter I read a book, written by Robert Anton Wilson, called Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati. Wilson published it in 1977 but his opening remarks on the subject still ring true today:

Briefly, the background of the Bavarian Illuminati puzzle is this. On May 1, 1776, in Bavaria, Dr. Adam Weishaupt, a professor of Canon Law at Ingolstadt University and a former Jesuit, formed a secret society called the Order of the Illuminati within the existing Masonic lodges of Germany. Since Masonry is itself a secret society, the Illuminati was a secret society within a secret society, a mystery inside a mystery, so to say. In 1785 the Illuminati were suppressed by the Bavarian government for allegedly plotting to overthrow all the kings in Europe and the Pope to boot. This much is generally agreed upon by all historians. (Not even that! See article) Everything else is a matter of heated, and sometimes fetid, controversy.

It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.) The Illuminati have also been credited with managing the French and American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over the world, being the brains behind Communism, continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the Order actually was (or is...). There is endless room for spooky speculation, and for pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the literature of the subject; and there has been a wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati every generation since 1776. If you were to believe all this sensational literature, the damned Bavarian conspirators were responsible for everything wrong with the world, including the energy crises and the fact that you can't even get a plumber on weekends. (pp. 3-4)

That short excerpt is perhaps the most honest and succinct introduction to the Illuminati as you'll ever come across. So it is more than a bit ironic that Wilson, throughout the rest of the text, proceeds to perpetuate and expand upon similar myths, and in the process manages to take it to a whole new level. In the end, the Illuminati had mystified Wilson as much as anyone in the preceding centuries.

Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) is an enigma in his own right: an archetypal Trickster in the tradition of Aleister Crowley or Timothy Leary, both of whom he greatly admires. The Cosmic Trigger Trilogy is meant to awaken the reader to multiple mind-blowing streams of thought and completely shatter preconceived notions of perception, time and space - much as the writings of illuminists themselves. Herein lies the seed of speculation to the effect that he must surely be in on the conspiracy - some have gone so far as to believe he's the Grand Master (or inner head) of the Illuminati himself. Wilson has always toyed with the accusations, and in typical RAW fashion, he's never denied it outright. (For those in doubt - congratulations - certainty is absurd after all, though you might consider the Grand Master wouldn't be doing a little activism in a wheel chair in his last years for Medicinal Marijuana as it helped the pain of his condition, and you might consider the Grand Master wouldn't die with financial troubles. Another hint, the 3 highest principles of RAW: Truth, Freedom, Humor. Or is it all part of the scheme? ;p jk)

Cosmic Trigger wasn't the first book Wilson dedicated to the theme, however. Two years earlier, in 1975, RAW and co-author Robert Shea popularized the modern wave of Illuminati conspiracies with the publication of the novel Illuminatus! Trilogy. A veritable cult classic, Illuminatus invigorated the underground market and spawned a whole new generation of conspiracy authors. One cannot read any of RAW's material without a healthy sense of humor ("A sense of humor results from perspective. The wider the perspective, the more humor you will perceive." RAW), though, and Illuminatus is definitely no exception. Written between 1969 and 1971 it reads like a subversive anarchist manual, yet satirical and surreal at the same time. The cut-and-paste job of excerpts right into the flow of dialogue - from books and pamphlets on a wide range of conspiracy theories - probably boosted its appeal from the beginning.

Any researcher investigating the Illuminati today would be remiss not to mention RAW - especially in a book or document purporting to cover the subject in detail. With the exception of Myron Fagan, "Wild" Bill Cooper,the John Birchers and Biblical endtimes literature, the formation of the current mythos surrounding the subject has a lot to do with the popularity of Wilson's books: have you ever seen the Illuminati and the star Sirius mentioned in the same paragraph?

“Do you realize sufficiently what it means to rule - to rule in a secret society? Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the best of men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religions, to rule without external force, to unite them indissolubly, to breathe one spirit and soul into them, men distributed over all parts of the world? ... And finally, do you know what secret societies are? What a place they occupy in the great kingdom of the world's events? Do you think they are unimportant, transitory appearances?”

And here is some of the evidence:On October 11 police search Xavier Zwack's residence in Landshut. A number of books and over two hundred letters, between Weishaupt and the Areopagites, were confiscated. The documents were published by the Bavarian government under the title Einige Originalschriften des Illuminaten Ordens. [VS, TM]

The evidence discovered at Zwack's residence was considerable: besides the secret communications between the Illuminati Adepts, the authorities found tables containing the Order's symbols and the Persian calendar; membership rosters, statutes, instructions for recruiters, ceremonies of initiation and imprints of the Order's insignia; a eulogy of atheism and a copy of a manuscript entitled Better Than Horus; a proposal for a branch of Illuminism for woman²²; several hundred impressions of Government seals (with a list of their owners, princes, nobles, clergymen, merchants, etc.), for the purposes of counterfeiting; instructions for the making of the poison Aqua Toffana, poisonous gas and secret ink; "an infernal machine" for the safeguarding of secret papers - apparently a strong box that would blow up, destroying its contents; and receipts for procuring abortion and a formula for making a tea to induce the procedure.

²² The plan for the "Illuminized sisters" was the brainchild of Zwack. He had been pushing the idea for years; apparently making little headway, but Weishaupt liked the idea, nonetheless. "Plan for the Order of Woman - This Order shall be subdivided into two classes, each forming a separate society, and having a different secret. The first shall be composed of virtuous women; the second, of the wild, the giddy, and the voluptuous, auschveifenden." [AB: 417] The former class were to promote "the reading of goods books," structured as a female version of the Minervals; while the latter could "serve to gratify those brethren who had a turn for sensual pleasure." [Ibid. 418] In his zeal to persuade Knigge and Weishaupt, Zwack even offers up his wife and four daughters-in-law to be the first adepts!

From the vid info: Pythagoras (fl. 530 BCE) must have been one of the world's greatest men, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development. It is also hard to say how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trustworthy; for a mass of legend gathered around his name at an early date. Sometimes he is represented as a man of science, and sometimes as a preacher of mystic doctrines, and we might be tempted to regard one or other of those characters as alone historical. Dedroidify.com Pythagoras page.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Read this first (hope we can break through the language barrier :p)'Even Apeldoorn Bellen' means 'Let's call Apeldoorn' Apeldoorn: the city name of the head branch of the insurance company's of this commercial. So 'Let's call the insurance company'.

'Of even niet': Or (let's) not (again not a literal translation, for those who are picking up a little flemish/dutch from me :p)

Download the excellent Steve Willner interview podcast at Red Ice Creations: We have Steve Willner from Labyrinth of the Psychonaut back with us on the program to discuss his triple episode team up with Jake Kotze and to further explore the topics of CERN, that did their first test run on the 7th anniversary of 9/11. Join us for a fascinating discussion.Topics Discussed: 666, WWW, Spiritual Science, Shiva, Higgs Particle/God Particle, Scientists Received Death Threats, Quakes, Dubai's Tower of Babel: Burj, Energy, Rik Clay, Gate, Octagon, "Who is watching the Watchers?", Fake Alien Invasion, Black Water, Bear claw Logo, Benjamin Fulford, Jericho, The All Seeing Eye, Sanpaku Eye, 1776, 2010, 2012, Hurricanes, Oil, The Watchmen, 13 Floor, The Lawnmower Man, The Fisher King, The Matrix, The Stars & Movie Stars, Babylon A.D., Inspiration, working with the muse and much more.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Lucid dreaming is one of the most empowering tools to transform us from passive witnesses to active collaborators in our own dreaming process. But dream work can lead us to wonder: who is dreaming and who is awake? Are most of us asleep?Read full article by Paul Levy at Reality Sandwich.

from the vid info: This prehistoric shark is rarely seen alive as its natural habitat lies up to 1,280 metres (4,200 feet) deep under the sea. Experts at the Awashima Marine Park were able to examine the creature, which was a female, and film it swimming around. Unfortunately though it died a couple of hours after it was moved to its new environment. (From Jan last year)

I have watched with keen interest and renewed hope as your campaign has mobilized millions of Americans behind your message of changing a political system that serves a small economic elite at the expense of the peoples of the United States and the world. Your election as president of the United States, where slaves and Indians were long considered less than human under the law, will undoubtedly constitute a historic moment in race relations in the United States.

Yet symbolism alone will not bring about change. Our young people, black and Native alike, suffer from police brutality and racial profiling, underfunded schools, and discrimination in employment and housing. I sincerely hope your campaign will inspire some hope among our youth to struggle for a better future. I am, however, concerned that your recent statement on the Sean Bell verdict, in which the New York police officers who fired 50 shots at a young man on the eve of his wedding were acquitted of criminal charges, displays a rather myopic view of the law. Until the law is harnessed to protect the victims of state violence and racism, it will serve as an instrument of repression, just as the slave codes functioned to sustain and legitimize an inhuman institution.

As I can testify from experience, the legal institutions of this nation are far from racial and political neutrality. When judges align with the repressive actions and policies of the executive branch, injustice is rationalized and cloaked in judicial platitudes. As you may know, I have now served more than three decades of my life as a political prisoner of the federal government for a crime I did not commit. I have served more time than the maximum sentence under the guidelines under which I was sentenced, yet my parole is continually denied (on the rare occasions when I am afforded a hearing) because I refuse to falsely confess. Amnesty International, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, my Guatemalan sister Rigoberta Menchu, and many of your friends and supporters have recognized me as a political prisoner and called for my immediate release. Millions of people around the world view me as a symbol of injustice against the indigenous peoples of this land, and I have no doubt that I will go down in history as one of a long line of victims of U.S. government repression, along with Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket Square martyrs, Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, and others targeted by for their political beliefs. But neither I nor my people can afford to wait for history to rectify the crimes of the past.

As a member of the American Indian Movement, I came to the Pine Ridge Oglala reservation to defend the traditional people there from human rights violations carried out by tribal police and goon squads backed by the FBI and the highest offices of the federal government. Our symbolic occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 inspired Indians across the Americas to struggle for their freedom and treaty rights, but it was also met by a fierce federal siege and a wave of violent repression on Pine Ridge. In 1974, AIM leader Russell Means campaigned for tribal chairman while being tried by the federal government for his role at Wounded Knee. Although Means was barred from the reservation by decree of the U.S.-client regime of Richard Wilson, he won the popular vote, only to be denied office by extensive vote fraud and control of the electoral mechanisms. Wilson's goons proceeded to shoot up pro-Means villages such as Wanblee and terrorize traditional supporters throughout the reservation, killing at least 60 people between 1973 and 1975.

It is long past time for a congressional investigation to examine the degree of federal complicity in the violent counterinsurgency that followed the occupation of Wounded Knee. The tragic shootout that led to the deaths of two FBI agents and one Native man also led not only to my false conviction, but also the termination of the Church Committee, which was investigating abuses by federal intelligence and law enforcement agents, before it could hold hearings on FBI infiltration of AIM. Despite decades of attempts by my attorneys to obtain government documents related to my case, the FBI continues to withhold thousands of documents that might tend to exonerate me or reveal compromising evidence of judicial collusion with the prosecution.

I truly believe the truth will set me free, but it will also signify a symbolic break from America's undeclared war on indigenous peoples. I hope and pray that you possess the courage and integrity to seek out the truth and the wisdom to recognize the inherent right of all peoples to self-determination, as acknowledged by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While your statements on federal Indian policy sound promising, your vision of "one America" has an ominous ring for Native peoples struggling to define their own national visions. If freed from colonial constraints and external intervention, indigenous nations might well serve as functioning models of the freedom and democracy to which the United States aspires.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Only very few people have ever dared to discover truth. And it is risky, because it may not console you; it has no obligation to console you. It is risky: it may shatter all that you have known before, and you will have to rearrange your whole life. It is dangerous: it may destroy all your illusions, it may shatter all your dreams. It is really going through fire; it is going to burn you as you are, it is going to kill you as you are. And who knows what will happen later on?

How can the seed know that by dying in the soil it will become a great tree? It will not be there to witness the happening. How can the seed know that one day, if it dies, there will be great foliage, green leaves, great branches, and flowers and fruits? How can the seed know? The seed will not be there. The seed has to disappear before it can happen. The seed has never met the tree. The seed has to disappear and die.

Only very few people have that much courage. It really needs guts to discover truth. You will die as yourself. You will certainly be born, but how can you be convinced of it? What guarantee is there? There is no guarantee.

Hence, unless you are with a master who has died and is reborn, who has crucified himself and is resurrected -- unless you come across a man like Christ or Buddha or Atisha -- you will not be able to gather enough courage.

Seeing Atisha, something may start stirring in your heart, a chord may be touched, something may be triggered, a synchronicity. The presence of somebody who has arrived may create a great longing in you, may become the birth of an intense passionate search for truth.

Belief cannot give you the truth, it only pretends. It is cheap, it is a plastic flower. You need not take all the trouble of growing a rosebush, you can simply go to the market and purchase plastic flowers -- and they are more lasting too, in fact they are almost eternal. Once in a while you can wash them, and they are fresh again. They will not deceive you, but at least they can deceive the neighbors, and that is the point. You will know all along that they are plastic flowers.How can you forget it? You have purchased them! The neighbors may be deceived, but how can you be deceived?

And I don't think that even the neighbors are deceived, because they have also purchased plastic flowers. They know they are deceiving you, they know you are deceiving them. Everybody is perfectly aware that everybody else is deceiving. "But this is how life is," people say. Nobody is really deceived. People just pretend to be deceived. You pretend that you have real flowers, others pretend that they are deceived. Just watch, observe, and what I am saying will be experienced by you. It is a simple fact; I am not talking philosophy, just stating facts.

There is this danger in belief: it makes you feel that you know the truth. And because it makes you feel that you know the truth, this becomes the greatest barrier in the search. Believe or disbelieve and you are blocked -- because disbelief is also nothing but belief in a negative form.

The Catholic believes in God, the communist believes in no God: both are believers. Go to Kaaba or go to the Comintern, go to Kailash or to the Kremlin, it is all the same. The believer believes it is so, the nonbeliever believes it is not so. And because both have already settled without taking the trouble to go and discover it, the deeper is their belief, the stronger is their belief, the greater is the barrier. They will never go on a pilgrimage, there is no point. They will live surrounded by their own illusion, self-created, self-sustained; it may be consoling, but it is not liberating. Millions of people are wasting their lives in belief and disbelief.

The inquiry into truth begins only when you drop all believing. You say, "I would like to encounter the truth on my own. I will not believe in Christ and I will not believe in Buddha. I would like to become a christ or a buddha myself, I would like to be a light unto myself."

Why should one be a Christian? It is ugly. Be a christ if you can be, but don't be a Christian. Be a buddha if you have any respect for yourself, but don't be a Buddhist. The Buddhist believes. Buddha knows.

When you can know, when knowing is possible, why settle for believing? But again, the society would like you to believe, because believers are good people, obedient, law-abiding. They follow all formalities and etiquette, they are never trouble-makers. They simply follow the crowd, whichever crowd they happen to be in; they simply go with the crowd. They are not real men, they are sheep. Humanity has not yet arrived.

Somebody once said to George Bernard Shaw, "What do you think about civilization?"He said, "It is a good idea. Somebody should try it."

It has not yet been tried. Humanity is still arriving; we are still groping between animality and humanity. We are in limbo: man has to be born, man has to be given birth to; we have to prepare the ground for man to appear.

And the most significant thing that will help that man to come will be if we can drop believing -- if we can drop being Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas, Buddhists, communists. If you can drop believing, immediately your energy will take a new turn: it will start inquiring. And to inquire is beautiful. Your life will become a pilgrimage to truth, and in that very pilgrimage you grow.

Growth is a by-product of the inquiry into truth. Believers never grow, they remain childish. And remember, to be childlike and to be childish are poles apart, they are not the same thing. It is beautiful to be childlike. The man of trust is childlike and the man of belief is childish. To be childlike is the ultimate in growth; that is the very culmination -- consciousness has come to the ultimate peak. To be childlike means to be a sage, and to be childish means to be just un-grownup.

The average mental age of human beings on the earth today is not more than twelve years. When for the first time this was discovered, it was such a shock. Nobody had ever thought about it; it was just by accident that it became known. In the First World War, for the first time in human history, the people who were candidates, who wanted to enter the army, were examined. Their mental age was inquired into, their IQ was determined. This was a great revelation -- that they were not more than twelve years; the average age was just twelve years.

This is childishness. The body goes on growing, and the mind has stopped at the age of twelve. What kind of humanity have we created on this earth? Why does the mind stop at twelve? Because by the time one is twelve, one has gathered all kinds of beliefs; one is already a believer, one already "knows" what truth is. One is a Christian, another is a communist; one believes in God, one does not believe in God; one believes in The Bible and the other believes in Das Kapital; one believes in the Bhagavad Gita, another believes in the Red Book of Mao Zedong.

We have drilled concepts and ideologies into the innocent minds of poor children. They are already becoming knowers. Do you know -- by the age of seven, a child already knows fifty percent of all that he will ever know. And by the time he is fourteen he has almost arrived; now there is nowhere to go, he has only to vegetate. Now he will exist as a cabbage. If he goes to college then, as they say, he may become a cauliflower. A cabbage with a college education is a cauliflower. But there is not much difference, just labels change. The cabbage becomes an M.A., a Ph.D., this and that, and just to show respect we call it a cauliflower. But the mental age is twelve.

The real man grows to the very end. Even while he is dying, he is growing. Even the last moment of his life will still be an inquiry, a search, a learning. He will still be inquiring -- now inquiring into death. He will be fascinated: death is such an unknown phenomenon, such a mystery, far more mysterious than life itself -- how can an intelligent man be afraid? If in life he has not been afraid to go into the uncharted and the unknown, at the moment of death he will be thrilled, ecstatic. Now the last moment has come: he will be entering into the darkness, the dark tunnel of death. This is the greatest adventure one can ever go on; he will be learning.

A real man never believes; he learns. A real man never becomes knowledgeable; he always remains open, open to truth. And he always remembers that "It is not that truth has to adjust to me, but just vice versa: I have to adjust to truth." The believer tries to adjust truth to himself, the seeker adjusts himself to truth. Remember the difference; the difference is tremendous. One who believes, he says, "Truth should be like this, this is my belief."

Just think of a Christian... If God appears not like Jesus Christ but like Krishna, not on the cross but with a flute and girlfriends dancing around him, the Christian will close his eyes; he will say, "This is not my cup of tea." Girlfriends? Can you think of Jesus with girlfriends? The cross and girlfriends can't go together. Jesus hanging on the cross and girlfriends dancing around? It won't fit, it will be very bizarre. He was waiting for Christ to appear, and instead of Christ this guy, Krishna, appears: he seems to be debauched. And the flute? The world is suffering and people are hungry and they need bread -- and this man is playing on the flute? He seems to be utterly uncompassionate, he seems to be indulgent. The Christian cannot believe in Krishna: if God appears as Krishna, then the Christian will say, "This is not God."

And the same will be the case with the Hindu who was waiting for Krishna: if Christ appears, that will not be his idea of God -- so sad, such a long face, so gloomy, with such suffering on his face.

Christians say Jesus never laughed. I don't think they are right, and I don't think they are representing the real Christ, but that's what they have managed to propagate. The Hindu cannot accept the revelation; he must think this is some kind of nightmare. Jesus will not appeal to him.

The believer cannot even trust his own experience. Even if truth is revealed, he will reject it, unless it fits with him. He is more important than truth itself: truth has an obligation to fit with him. He is the criterion, he is the decisive factor. This kind of man can never know truth; he is already prejudiced, poisoned.

The man who wants to know truth has to be capable of dropping all concepts about truth. Everything about truth has to be dropped. Only then can you know truth. Know well: to know about truth is not to know truth. Whatsoever you know may be utter nonsense; there is every possibility that it is utter nonsense. In fact people can be conditioned to believe any kind of nonsense; they can be convinced.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Dream the Future of DreamingBetween September 21 - October 5, 2008 join some of the world's foremost experts on the subject of Psi dreaming for two weeks of cutting-edge papers, discussions, workshops, and chats. If you've ever had a precognitive dream, a lucid dream, or simply an "unusual dream" that never quite made sense, this is the place for you.

We attempt to make this conference as affordable and enjoyable as possible, and the conference is included free with IASD membership between August 15 and October 1, 2008. The result is an international treat with participants from all around the globe.

Wow, excellent to learn about so much interesting research, will give me brainfood for a lot of posts to come. If you want to know more about lucid dreaming - which is becoming aware that you are dreaming in the dream - check out the sponsor page for links to great sites like Lucid Dreaming 4 all (and the dedroidify lucid dreaming label).

Mr Science makes two rules for himself: he must not step downwards, and he must not stay put. He also makes a guideline: he should not normally step sideways unless the way upward is blocked.

Mr Science succeeds in getting a ways up the hill and he calls down "I haven't seen any gods up here yet, and I don't think there are any". Mr Religion, with his eyes shut, says "I see them just fine". Mr Model-Agnostic says "what do you mean by 'up here'?"

Thanks Julian Morrison (from reddit).Shared for the humor. In my version the Model Agnostic would learn from the scientist but go beyond his limits. For instance the scientist might not reach the top depending on the shape of the mountain with those rules ;p

Monday, September 8, 2008

Richard Rose (March 14, 1917 - July 6, 2005) was an American mystic, esoteric philosopher, author, poet, and investigator of paranormal phenomena. He published a number of books and spoke widely in universities and other venues across the country during the 1970s and 1980s.

Rose developed a system which he described as the "retreat from untruth," an examination of personal belief systems and lifestyles. In that system one discards what one finds to be false on a case-by-case basis. He believed a spiritual Ultimate truth exists and can be found for oneself with sufficient application of effort, and recommended skeptical approaches such as his.

He studied human psychology, human weakness and human potential, then wrote challenges to psychology, psychiatry, religion, academia, the legal system, and the New Age movement. His criticism included issues of group-think, dogmatism, financial motives, emotional appeals, and reliance on questionable authorities.

Quotes:

"We live in a cloud of illusions and rarely realize that we are spinning this web of fiction for all the hours and days of our lives, unless we are fortunate or unfortunate enough to die slowly. Perhaps slow death may be the only moments of reality for the total life of many earthlings. Because the dying person is forced to face the fact that he is about to become zero."

"What is reality? We can only know the truth by teaching ourselves to face the truth in all things. If we encourage our computer to come up with erroneous answers, because they are more desirable, then we are developing a computer that we may never be able to trust. Truth is that which Is."

"My purpose is to outline a system which will prove itself as it goes along, and which will reward us at any point along the line by finding for us a more disciplined and skillful mind, and a mind that is more aware of itself."

"We inherit dispositions, not destinies."

"The highest form of spiritual work is the realization of the essence of man."

"Experience is a worthless and transient existence unless the experiencer is known."

"The path to Truth begins with the self. We cannot properly isolate, identify, or analyze the self, because it is the subject about which we know the least.""

"The mistake people make is to wait for something to happen to them before they begin searching. They want the voice of God, or something, to tell them to get started. Or maybe they know they should be doing something but they procrastinate, hoping that tomorrow they'll have more conviction and be more determined. What they forget is there may be no tomorrow for them."

"Even the desire for peace of mind or bliss is an ego. Life is a battle, and we don’t want to face that."

"An experience can’t be happy, eternally. We are bipolar beings. When there’s happiness, there’s automatically sorrow. If we were purely happy all the time, it would get so damn monotonous we’d wish for some sorrow or problem to overcome, just for the sake of a challenge."

"Enlightenment is the result of your thoughts being a certain distance apart."

"A man who is sincere and makes philosophy his life’s endeavor, will emanate that sincerity. A man who thinks it and lives it will touch the intuition of others."

"Don't build your happiness on someone else's unhappiness."

"The only meditation is what you devise for yourself. The best meditation is just to look at yourself: "Why did I think this?" or "What should I do more dynamically tomorrow?"

Saturday, September 6, 2008

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.To reach out to others is to risk involvement.To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.To love is to risk not being loved in return.To live is to risk dying.To hope is to risk despair.To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken,because the greatest hazard in life is to do nothing.

The person who risks nothing,does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

Friday, September 5, 2008

This is another sporadic series I've been keeping in draft for a while, where I'd like to dedroidify some associations that are taken for granted, and just have some fun too. Not with the intention of replacing views, but adding views.

Aristotelian logic VS Maybe logic: "The Maybe Logic (see General Semantics), for instance, refers to the application of discoveries in the microcosmic realm of quantum physics to the macrocosmic (and every bit as mysterious and illogical) field of human nature, freeing our minds from the simplistic "yes or no, black or white" restrictions of Aristotelian logic to add a little "wiggle room" for ambiguity, alternate explanations, and - above all - compassion."D. Scott Apel

Atlantis: in dutch we can separate the parts At-lant-is, in the west-flemish dutch dialect, "A't land is" means "if it's land" :p, me and a buddy do a joke where if one says atlantis, the other says atwateris. (Water is the same in dutch as in english)

Bad Guy (in fiction too): "The one pointing the gun at you (on the movie poster)." Thanks Celtic Rebel

Bank: In dutch Bench=Bank too. A Judge's bench (the judge is 'owned' by the bank), Vatican canon law = swiss guard who guard the pope = switzerland=banking = wtf is the pope doing involved with these banks? ;p Power baby. In dutch Judge is 'Rechter', literally 'Right-er'.

Belief: You can't spell believe without lie. Belief Systems are BS. Belief is unnecessary in this world. There seems to be knowing, and assuming.

Catma: a relative meta-belief, or opinion - which is seen as a current opinion based on evidence acquired until now, and one can have several (even differing and contradicting) catmas on one subject, where that should be interesting or necessary, or where no proof or strong evidence exists. An opinion open to criticism and re-evaluation, or dismissal, because it is not useful to 'believe' in the quest for truth. Even where strong evidence or seeming proof exists, we should keep thinking about those aspects of existence. And the only proof, is proof.

Certain: Curtain, certain there's a man behind the curtain!? :p

Conspiracy Theory: Oeh! A much demonized word with heavy connotations. Almost always the PTB use the words "Conspiracy Theory", not "Conspiracy Research". While I care to investigate conspiracy theories about, say 9/11, what opened my eyes on this matter was the conspiracy research, observation and the stack of evidence. Not the theorization, which is the only thing the Media, gatekeepers and authority figures scrutinize. Never or extremely rarely, will they touch the evidence or they'll be very selective and dismissive about it.

Daily Show Paradigm: To me, a stepping stone towards the more eSoteric aspects of world affairs. The Daily Show is between the eSoteric and eXoteric. Jon Stewart plays compilations of all major media stations telling the same story, using the same keywords. Exposes the bias and stagnancy of both parties. Yet most of the viewers are liberals or libertarians who shun the demonized word conspiracy. It seems unfeasible to me to watch this show for more than a year and not come to the realization that voting is pretty meaningless

Diploma: A receipt of your indoctrination ;p (not meant extremely).

Divide & Conquer: Create conflicting belief systems and ideologies, different standards for different groups, let the 2 dogs fight and run away with the bone.

Dogma: fixed rigid belief which is taken for truth. Can be a mere assumption, mistake, pure belief, bias and prejudice. Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. Think of barking dogs and Amgod ("My beliefs are god. I worship my beliefs." -> not healthy)

Earth: Anagram for Heart and Threa (Tree)

Fascism: Notice how from 1 to 3 the definition will increasingly apply to big powers like US, Britain, Russia and China. In fact, most Western countries now...Fascism 1 from wikipedia: Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist political ideology and mass movement that is concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence, and which seeks to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by exalting the nation or race, as well as promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.Fascism 2 from Lenin: "Fascism is capitalism in decay"Fascism 3 from Mussolini: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."(China too because the fast rise of the economy is combined with extreme pollution (A total of 16 out of the top 20 most polluted cities are in China.), people (entire villages) losing their homes to make way for appartement buildings, etc. The ratio of yes-men to people forced into action because of injustice is shifting. It is obvious the same trend cannot go on.)

Freedom: More than the (illusion of) choice between political parties, (mostly mindnumbing) work and (irrelevant and polluting) consumption. We are born free, it does not depend on the imaginary lines politicians have dreamt up.

Freedom Fighter: This is what the CIA trained and supplied Mujahedeen (the brainchild of Zbigniew Brzezinski - can't this mofo change his damn name I have to google it everytime and even its spelling corrector has trouble with it lol :p, a foreign policy advisor of Obama) was called when they fought Russians in Afghanistan, before they splintered off into Al Qaeda. Interesting how one changes from Freedom Fighter to Terrorist depending on which Government they're fighting huh?

Government 1: The mob, oligarchy. Control freaks, you are not getting anything without giving something to them. After all you're on their territory, and have to pay for their protection (which is code for: you have to pay not to be persecuted.)

Government 2: From the Latin gubernare and the Greek kubernan, meaning 'to control' and from the Latin mente, meaning 'mind'. Government = The control of the mind.

Guerilla Ontology: "My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything." RAW

Ideology: A modern form of Religion, can be just as dogmatic and unthinking, confusing belief or opinion with reality.

Impossible: Is only what seems incomprehensible by the current limits of one's accumulated information and experience. One of my buddies who fled back into rationalism and 'certainty' (ignoring-ance all that is not for 'certain') his favorite saying was "But that's surely impossible!"

Is: "To be", ""Is", "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment." Hagbard Celine - Illuminatus! Trilogy

Mens: talk about patriarchal, in Dutch 'Mens' means 'Human', the plural is 'Mensen'.

Mystère: French for Mystery. Miss Terre = Miss Earth, the mystery :p

Mysticism: "In (Gordiano) Bruno's day the 3 terms were divided up differently, you had science and mysticism on one side, and religion on the other side. Science and mysticism are alike in their struggle against religion. They were both based on experience and respect for the individual. The idea of science and mysticism was go out and discover for yourself. Find out what works, find out how the universe is actually structured and how you relate to the structure of the universe. And so there were basically 2 areas of scientific exploration, the external and the internal. But they were both pursued by the same method, the experimental method." RAW

Negation: "I'm not trying to say you're an asshole." How did that come across to you? :p

New Inquisition: The old inquisition was based on Religion. The New one is based on Materialism. "The materialist fundamentalists are funnier than the Christian fundamentalists, because they think they're rational!" RAW

Occult: Hidden, that's all.

Oligarchy: The few decide for the many, through the illusion of democracy.

Ourselves: Our elves (celtic rebel)

Ozone Layer: Oz Zone layer of Reality ;p

Paper: "To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency." Alan Watts (it's not what you're supposed to do with it ;p)

Politics: Poly-Tics: Poly=Many, Tics=Bloodsucking Insects.

PD: Police Department, in french and dutch pédé or PD is a cuss word derived from pederasty.

Philosophy: The love of Wisdom, if you consider yourself wise and have not studied philosophy (on your own time, no college receipt recquired) there's obviously something missing. If you have studied philosophy and consider yourself wise, you're doing it wrong :p. (All is relative ;p)

Rationalism: In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification, in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive. - So we throw sensory experience out the window, that seems kinda... unreasonable, doesn't it? :p

Reality Tunnel: A view of reality which should not be mistaken for reality itself, a map, a model, of which we can hold many different ones in our mind and can switch views when necessary, to learn as much about the world as possible and to be as open as possible in the quest for truth. Can be implemented as simply or as complicated as you want and overflowing in each other.

Reality: What is reality? Is it your idea of reality? Is it your experience of reality? Is it everyone's idea of reality? Is it everyone's experience of reality?

Scientific Method: "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves." Leonard Orr"See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that." Douglas Adams

Sign-ificance: Sync-nificance (from earlier synchromystics!)

S.O.S.: When flipping channels a buddy remarks: "oh crap the Jonas brothers" I just reply "lol Spawns of Satan!" Upon which the critters whine "S.O.S." which happened to be the name and chorus of their song. SOS: Spawns of Satan :p

Symbol: An alphabetic character is a symbol, a word is a symbol, all is metaphor.

Terrorism: The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear (from wordref).Sounds suspiciously like what Western governments are doing. You may be interested to know that there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism. Fascinating, so the "War on Terror" is a war on who-the-f-knows-what :p

Transcendence = trance end dance = end the dance of trance. (thanks anon)

Wet: dutch word for Law. Wet in english alludes to maritime law, see Jordan Maxwell.

What a weird day, the cops sent me a fine months ago (FOR CROSSING A FULL WHITE LINE ON THE ROAD WITH NO ONE IN SIGHT! GASP, I MUST ATTONE :p) I was thinking, I didn't do anything wrong if I remember correctly and I just payed one for a similar silly thing. So I check the letter again and the reference is the same on a fine I got earlier, hmmm! It wasn't even mentioned that I had missed a payment!So I check the bank records and yep I did pay it... on APRIL 1st, lol, and am informed by friends that the bureaucrats set up a new system that makes it harder for them to check if a fine is paid lol... 'Convenient', because having people check their own finances and getting back to the police supplies the system with spending on gas, paper, stamps. And a crapload of fines must get paid double too this way. Boost the economy! I let this stuff wait because I honestly can't take this bs too seriously and time being an illusion and all :p.Suddenly I get a letter that I can get a lawsuit slapped on me for not paying and I can contact the district attorney if I have any objections, so I get my papers in order now, and drive to the bank (to get the bank statements I need to prove I payed a fine, so paying it is not enough, you have to prove it now lol). I again wait too long to supply this to the cops, not caring that much about their system-games.Today I get a letter that I now have the chance to pay it immediately to the cops, or I get a lawsuit slapped on me. So I get off my ass and take my copies that were laying here ready all along, to the police station and a friendly police officer takes care of it and says all is fine. A half hour later I get a call from the police, "I'm checking the records here and it seems you payed double." LOL! Oh great, and the people who sent all those damn threatening letters couldn't do that? So now I can write to the DA to get my money back, instead of getting a lawsuit. Hilarious!

The Anal Emotional-Territorial Circuit. This is imprinted in the "Toddling" stage when the infant rises up, walks about and begins to struggle for power within the family structure. This mostly mammalian circuit processes territorial rules, emotional games & power tactics, or cons, pecking order and rituals of political domination or submission.

adapted from Timothy Leary

While we are toddling we learn about emotional power tactics, and we make our first territorial demands. We learn how to use different attitudes and behaviors to get the desired reaction from the people around us. This circuit determines if we are dominanit or submissive in our adult lives. Damage to this circuit either makes a person easily intimidated, or overbearing and bossey. This is where we learn to live and let live.

As every parent knows, the toddler is no longer a passive (bio-vegetative) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical (and emotional) territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and decision-making. Again the first imprint on this circuit usually remains constant for life (unless brainwashed) and identifies the stimuli which automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say a person is behaving emotionally, egoistically or 'like a two-year-old', we mean that SHe (He/She) is blindly following one of the robot imprints on this circuit. (which leads to experiences, like ED209 here about to go down the stairs) In popular speech the second circuit is called "ego." The "ego" is "the second circuit mammalian sense of status (importance-unimportance) in the pack or tribe". Leary points out that politicians live in a second circuit "reality tunnel" because their only goals are territorial expansion and control over others.

I apologize for the Reid-monster picture but it's to illustrate a point. With alcohol when we get drunk enough our reason fades away to make room for an increased Circuit 2 consciousness, which means we turn back into toddlers.

The second, emotional-territorial circuit creates a two-dimensional
social space in conjunction with first-circuit advance-retreat.

The grid of Circuits I and II creates four quadrants. Note that Hostile Strength (the tyrant) is inclined to paranoid withdrawal; he must govern, but he is also afraid. Cf. the careers of Hitler, Stalin, Howard Hughes, etc. and the inaccessible Castle and Court in Kafka's allegories. Note also that the dependent neurotic is not in retreat at all; he or she advances upon you, demanding fulfillment of emotional "needs" (imprints).

Similarly from The Nine Insights by James Redfield, summarized by Alan Atkisson:
Childhood traumas block our ability to fully experience the mystical. All humans, because of their upbringing, tend toward one of four control dramas:
* Intimidators steal energy from others by threat.
* Interrogators steal it by judging and questioning.
* Aloof people attract attention (and energy) to themselves by playing coy.
* Poor me's make us feel guilty and responsible for them.

1. Never believe totally in anybody else's BS.
2. Never believe totally in your own BS.
Robert Anton Wilson

BS - BIAS - BELIEF SYSTEM - BULLSHIT

and the emotional, irreasonable defense thereof

"Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission."
Robert Anton Wilson

"We can all see how other people's BS (belief system or bullshit :p) makes them blind and "stupid" at times, but we find it very hard to notice how our own BS is doing the same to us. This is what anthropologists call 'acculturalization.' Following Gurdjieff, I prefer to call it hypnosis... Every politician knows how to induce hypnosis, and very damned few people on the whole planet know how to de-hypnotize themselves. The world is not governed by facts or logic. It is governed by BS (belief systems)."
Robert Anton Wilson

Bias is a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, especially when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective.

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
Voltaire

In psychology, cognitive bias is bias based on cognitive factors. One type of cognitive bias is confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret new information in such a way that confirms one's prior beliefs, even to the extreme of denial, ignoring information that conflicts with one's prior beliefs. The fundamental attribution error, also known as correspondence bias, is one example of such bias, in which people tend to explain others' behavior in terms of personality whereas they tend to explain their own behavior in terms of the situation.

"'Seeing' is not a function of the eyes alone, but of the eyes-and-brain working together. A popular proverb says, 'Seeing is believing,' but as the philosopher Santayana once pointed out, humans are much better at believing than at seeing." Robert Anton Wilson

"!Achtung!!!Is Reality Distorting Your Ideals?"
Antero Alli

So quite nearly all of us have our own little dogmas illustrated by our unconscious behaviour and language, a Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. While in the context of religion the term is largely descriptive, outside of religion its current usage tends to carry a pejorative connotation—referring to concepts as being "established" only according to a particular point of view, and thus one of doubtful foundation. This pejorative connotation is even stronger with the term dogmatic, used to describe a person of rigid beliefs who is not open to rational argument.

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
John Lennon

The opposite of the absolute dogma is catma, catmas are relative temporary meta-beliefs (until new info can possibly change it) of which many - even contradicting - can be held into one's consciousness for the widest perspective and the highest intelligence. Because there is much less ignoring = Ignorance. (Everything I say here is catma, subject to change or influence, only presented here for consideration and dedroidifying.)

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
William James

"Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking." RAW

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion." Albert Einstein

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." Arthur Schopenhauer

Vertical and Lateral thinking.
More broadly, dogmatic and catmatic.
Think of a tree comparison, a dogmatic tiny tree with few branches
Or catmatic multi reality tunnel majestically branched out
"Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying."
Ram Dass

"In the province of the mind, what is believed to be true is true, or becomes true within certain limits to be learned by experience and experiment. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind. There are no limits." John C. Lilly

"Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes: you cannot see the truth. The very desire to find the truth disappears. But if all your belief systems are taken away from you, in the beginning certainly, it is bitter. I know the fear, the anxiety, that will surface immediately which you have been suppressing for millenia. But it is there, very alive, no God can destroy it. Only the search for truth and the experience of truth, NOT a belief is capable to heal all your wounds. To make you a whole being, and the whole person is the holy person to me." Osho

The Anal Mammalian Stage does not only allude to toddler potty training:

From Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat
Most of the domesticated primates of Terra did not know they were primates. They thought they were something apart from and "superior" to the rest of the planet.
Even Benny Benedict's "One Month to Go" column was based on that illusion. Benny had actually read Darwin once, in college a long time ago, and had heard of sciences like ethology and ecology, but the facts of evolution had never really registered on him. He never thought of himself as a primate. He never realized his friends and associates were primates. Above all, he never understood that the alpha males of Unistat were typical leaders of primate bands. As a result of this inability to see the obvious, Benny was constantly alarmed and terrified by the behavior of himself, his friends and associates and especially the alpha males of the pack. Since he didn't know it was ordinary primate behavior, it seemed just awful to him.
Since a great deal of primate behavior was considered just awful, most of the domesticated primates spent most of their time trying to conceal what they were doing.
Some of the primates got caught by other primates. All of the primates lived in dread of getting caught. Those who got caught were called no-good shits. The term no-good shit was a deep expression of primate psychology. For instance, one wild primate (a chimpanzee) taught sign language by two domesticated primates (scientists) spontaneously put together the signs for "shit" and "scientist" to describe a scientist she didn't like. She was calling him shit-scientist. She also put together the signs for "shit" and "chimpanzee" for another chimpanzee she didn't like. She was calling him shit-chimpanzee.
"You no-good shit," domesticate domesticate primates often said to each other.
This metaphor was deep in primate psychology because primates mark their territories with excretions, and sometimes they threw excretions at each other when disputing over territories.
One primate wrote a long book describing in vivid detail how his political enemies should be punished. He imagined them in an enormous hole in the ground, with flames and smoke and rivers of shit. This primate was named Dante Alighieri.
Another primate wrote that every primate infant goes through a stage of being chiefly concerned with bio-survival, i.e., food, i.e., Mommie's Titty. He called this the Oral Stage. He said the infant next went on to a stage of learning mammalian politics, i.e., recognizing the Father (alpha-male) and his Authority and territorial demands. He called this, with an insight that few primates shared, the Anal Stage.
This primate was named Freud. He had taken his own nervous system apart and examined its component circuits by periodically altering its structure with neurochemicals. Among the anal insults exchanged by domesticated primates when fighting for their space were: "Up your ass," "Go shit in your hat," "You're full of shit," and many others.
One of the most admired alpha-males in the Kingdom of the Franks was General Canbronne. General Canbronne won this adulation for the answer he gave when asked to surrender at Waterloo.
"Merde," was the answer General Canbronne gave. The word petard means a kind of bomb. It comes from the same Olde English root as fart.
General Canbronne's mentality was typical of the alpha-males of the military caste.
When primates went to war or got violent in other ways, they always said they were about to knock the shit out of the enemy.
They also spoke of dumping on each other.

DIVIDE & CONQUERTHROUGH BS

(belief systems)

"Animals outline their territories with their excretions,
humans outline their territories by ink excretions on paper."
Robert Anton Wilson

As long as politics move from left to right, right to left. We do not move one step forward. Evolve beyond BS.

20 Amazing facts about voting in the US:
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the US voting machine industry.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

Diebold (the name should make you suspicious at least DIE BOLD, hello?!), is also the company that makes the machines where I get my money out of in Belgium. Here, something to assure us. I'm not convinced.

There is no logic in Politics.

Haha, no really though. There isn't (study): "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged. Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University.

Political beliefs are at the 2nd circuit. They get defended in an Emotional Territorial state. (Not a reasonable or rational one.) The TODDLER level. Are you still acting like a toddler politically or otherwise sometimes? Or do you know any others? ;p

"You can't spell believe without lie." NUFAN

symbols get mistaken for reality - symbols can be manipulated
hence 'reality' can be manipulated - messy situation develops

Believe in Change? What are you gonna change?

"All that is, is metaphor."
Noramn O. Brown, Closing Time

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."
Sigmund Freud

Sombunall (some but not all) Liberals think only the Republicans are responsible for the rigged elections. Because... oh no, John Kerry, fellow Skull&Bones man and distant cousin of Bush lost. And oh no, Al Gore, nobel prize winning liar lost (Global Warming=Snow in Kenya? Oh universe :p). Listening to (non-bought) scientists of both sides first, instead of a politician wether he's left or right seems more reasonable - remember the debates between these people, there was hardly any difference. Gore another distant cousin, is a descendant of Edward I, he is also a cousin of former U.S. president Richard Nixon. He is a descendant of Roman Emperors Louis II, Charles II and Louis I and is therefore also a direct descendant of Charlemagne - the eight-century Emperor.
Obama is related to Cheney and Bush... Obama's political lineage includes not just President Bush but also Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S Truman, Dick Cheney and Winston Churchill...
Bush is related to every European monarch on and off the throne - including the King of Albania - and has kinship with every member of Britain's royal family, the House of Windsor. All these are related somehow, the aristocracy never left.

Just because one of the two makes more sense than the other (depending on your BS - Belief System) doesn't mean they can't both be frauds - or both entrenched in their belief system instead of dealing with the truth, or however else you want to see it. What's an indicator of BS? Someone who puts belief (BS) before (even wanting to talk about) reality.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

"So just think it through. Hatred is the stillborn child of ignorance and boredom. Such a narrow view! Means seeds of tolerance are sown by those who can't afford them. What will you do? It's not too late for you to change your xenophobic point of view!" Good Riddance

The 2nd Circuit is about Power
"People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians - meaningless propositions
that look meaningful to the linguistically naive."
Robert Anton Wilson

"All around one the True Believers trudge by, mouths grim, brows furrowed, ulcers and worse eating at their innards. This desperate company of oddfellows (Thoreau) live in what psychologists call 'cognitive dissonance.' Because their reality-maps are, one and all, too small to cover the vast, eerie, amusing world in which we live, they are perpetually frustrated: the world does not live up to their fixed beliefs. They are all convinced that there is something radically wrong with the universe itself, or with the rest of humanity, and they never suspect that the real trouble is in their own rigid and robotic nervous systems."
Robert Anton Wilson

"Don't you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-Bottling Association? And don't you know they would allow thousands and millions to die if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is."
Robert Ingersoll, A Lay Sermon

CounterCultureWhy 'believing' nothing & exploring everything is vital

BS can sometimes be easily spotted: "Think about this. The people exposing the illuminati agenda are either christians, jews, other religious zealots, ex-CIA sex slaves, New Age technological spiritists, scientists and the like. I have yet to read information from any source exposing the agenda that points a finger directly at the real culprit in all this… The luciferian mindset. (His thoughts, not mine, I still have no idea what's going on :p) They don’t point a finger because they don’t realize the direct involvement by this entity in manipulating this whole agenda. If they did realize this, and did their research into the deep dark mysteries of Babylon, they would soon realize they’d be pointing a finger at themselves and would have to give up their lunatic belief systems." (remember RAW's quote earlier about our own and others belief systems...)
Bryan Kemila exposing his own belief system? He may be right, I dunno (yet? :p) With all do respect, what precisely is a luciferian mindset entity and how do you expose it, or he? (I jest a little, who can take reality too seriously anymore!? ;p) A curious thing in the conspiracy community is lots of people are pointing fingers at each other because they're not talking about those guys enough or at all - While they're exposing others. And then there's the possible counterintelligence disinformation campaigns... The truth requires investigation, pick your challenges wisely.

One can choose not to stay too serious all the time, after all having a scapegoat (;p) in the first place is a loser script, interesting excerpt from an article Language and Lunacy by RAW:
"I think we can only accept Oligarchy (political system governed by a few people) as the proper name for that system - not Matriarchy, as Philip Wylie suggested in the 1940s and not Patriarchy, as the Feminists have insisted since the 1960s. A group of rich families, not merely the males, make all the important decisions. This type of system has existed in every post-tribal society in history, including the ones that calls themselves democratic, socialistic or even communistic. Oligarchy virtually means the same as "civilization." Ignoring this fact, and picking out some scapegoat group like Jews or males, utterly confuses our political thinking and can lead to nothing but madness. "